For many years, hot tubs and home spas were the exclusive luxuries of the wealthy. They were expensive to buy, expensive to operate, and not entirely reliable. With the onset of better manufacturing techniques, improved materials, and lower prices, however, the popularity of hot tubs and home spas has soared, particularly throughout the last decade.
History provides many examples of hot tubs or spas. For instance, the Romans were known to have used bathhouses, which became centers of social life and a common daily activity for the elite classes. Other cultures made use of spa-like hot baths as well, including the ancient peoples of China and Japan.
Some of the earliest spa enthusiasts appreciated the health benefits of using hot water to relax the body, open the pores of the skin, and generally promote better health. Cleanliness was considered healthful and a sign of prosperity. As medical science has advanced, there has been an increased awareness of the benefits of hot tub hydrotherapy. Many medical conditions, injuries and other health problems can be eased or improved with regular hydrotherapy treatments. For example, people with arthritis, multiple sclerosis, paralysis and other conditions that involve deteriorating range of motion benefit from time spent in a hot tub. The warm water helps ease aches and pains, while loosening joints and making them easier to move and keep mobile. Joint problems, chronic back pain and other painful conditions resulting from injuries are also helped with regular hot tub hydrotherapy. Those seeking stress relief, general relaxation, and quiet opportunities for conversation commonly experience significant hot tub benefits as well.
Modern technology, materials and production processes make it possible to design and build home spas and hot tubs with highly specialized hydrotherapy features. These features are typically based on a combination of seating position, jet position and jet function.
Traditional hot tub seating was bench-style, typically in a round shape and at a uniform depth so that everyone sat at the same level in the tub. This made it challenging for people of different heights to fully benefit from hot tub therapy. With the development of molded fiberglass spa shells came the development of different shapes and sizes of seats. Manufacturers began to include lounge seats, where the bather reclines in the water, as well as seats to accommodate bathers of different heights. Some also included deeper seats, designed to fully immerse the bather and allow placement of jets in specific positions for specific benefits.
Moldable shell manufacturing made it possible for the first time to place jets in nearly any position within the tub. Manufacturers began experimenting with placing jets in places where they would focus on specific areas of the body, such as the back, neck, shoulders, arms and legs.
The earliest jets were single-action nozzles with limited ability to adjust where they were aimed or the intensity of the jet action. This made it difficult to use them in positions where they would affect more tender areas of the body, such as wrists, forearms, ankles, feet and knees. As manufacturers developed more advanced jets with a wider variety of functionality, though, the technology of hydrotherapy advanced significantly. Modern hot tubs and spas can be customized with a surprising variety of jets that range from multi-purpose to highly specialized. Buyers often are able to select exactly which jets to install in specific locations within their hot tub or home spa. The benefits of different jet types have grown substantially with the development of independent seating control. In older spas and hot tubs, one set of controls ran all of the therapy jets, but independent seating control allows each bather to control the strength and intensity of therapy in their own individual seat.
Spas and hot tubs have been around in one form or another for centuries, but only in the last few decades have technology, materials and manufacturing improved to the point where a home spa is affordable enough and reliable enough to be within reach of most people. Although the field of spas and hot tubs has enjoyed considerable innovation throughout much of the last decade, much of the improvements have been directed toward improving the hydrotherapy systems, the jets, and the construction materials, particularly the construction materials relating to the tubs, with little effort directed toward improving their overall usefulness. As a result, the art suffers in that spas and hot tubs are not versatile in terms of providing users with the ability to not only enjoy the benefits of hot water, but also the benefits of chilled water.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a spa system incorporating a tub and heating and cooling devices operatively associated with a circulating system for providing the ability to provide the tub with hot water and also with cold water.
It is another purpose of the invention to provide new and improved spa system that is easy to construct.
It is still another purpose of the invention to provide new and improved spa system that is inexpensive.
It is yet another purpose of the invention to provide a spa system that is easy to use, and that incorporates a tub held by a chassis that is specifically adapted to accommodate a water cooling device to be operatively plumbed with a circulating system for the tub that is concurrently operatively plumbed to a water heating device.
It is a further provision of the invention to increase the usefulness of spa systems.